Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: All university students should take basic science courses regardless of their field of study.

As a student majoring in Computer Science, I was required to take basic science courses like Physics and Biology in the first three years of my undergraduate study. I and almost all of my classmates were confused about why these syllabuses were made compulsory for us since we might probably not make use of them in our future career. If I had a choice, I would oppose all the college students being required to take basic science courses no matter what their majors are.

In the first place, taking basic science courses can put additional academic pressure on students. No matter what majors the students pursue, they are obliged to fully understand a series of professional courses. Besides that, for certain essential theories or indispensable skills, students are expected to master them, namely, being competent to not only comprehend them but also put them into practice. Furthermore, quantities of projects and examinations are employed as methods to examine whether they understand and become proficient in the professional knowledge or not, which give rise to the fact that quite a large proportion of students under intense stress. Taking these situations into consideration, there is no doubt that students will have to tolerate more academic pressure if basic science courses are added into their curriculums in that they have more intensive classes to attend, more deadlines to meet and more tests to review for. Take my experience as an example. In my sophomore year, several non-trivial but core courses like Algorithms and Data Structure were required to take. Learners could master them well by no means but programming a lot, like finishing the projects assigned by teachers, which were quite time-consuming and made me exhausted. What’s worse, a basic science course Physics was also demanded. Faced with another unfamiliar subject, I found myself under more stress because I wanted to get good performance in all these subjects. I endeavored to code for courses of my major and do the exercises for Physics at the expense of time and quality of my sleep. If I had a choice, I would not to choose to have the basic science class, since those core courses were challenging enough for me to study.

In addition, taking basic science courses might make it more difficult for students to equip themselves with other skills, such as communication, team cooperation, and leadership, well enough to meet the requirements demanded by corporations after graduation. Given that a student has to attend multiple additional classes and accomplish numerous projects, time and energy for him to enhance other skills must be limited. On the contrary, for those who only need to concentrate on their own field of study, they can make use of the spare time to participate in various activities to improve those skills. The contrast between my friend Linda, majoring in Accounting and me can illustrate this point. She was not required to take the basic courses while I was. As a result, she had more time to participate in students union and clubs. In the public speaking club, she practiced and got used to deliver speeches to the public, while I was still afraid of even speak in front of people. I really hope I could have more time to cultivate my presentation skills instead of all time used for studying so that I might be more confident in myself when I speak to others.

Admittedly, taking basic science has its own merits. The knowledge taught in basic science courses are the refinement of the wisdom of lots of masters, like Newton, Einstein. Learning this knowledge could make us understand the universe, the environment we live in and have a broader horizon. But all the knowledge could be learned by other ways, like through Massive Open Online Courses platforms like Coursera in place of forcing all students to learn it in the university. It is more advisable for students to choose whether to take them depending on their own interest.

In conclusion, I oppose that university student should take basic science courses if they do not major in that subject.